Abstract The present study adopts a qualitative approach to explore the nature and sources of consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) in the cryptocurrency market. Drawing on thirty-two semi-structured interviews with crypto investors in the UK, our findings reveal three main sources of CBBE for crypto brands (i.e. blockchain-based features, crypto brand identity, psychological factors). Also, we supply insights into how the nature and features of blockchain technology shape consumersâ attitude towards crypto brands. Our findings also reveal the key elements of cryptosâ brand identity (i.e. white papers, brand purpose, ICOs) as well as various psychological factors (i.e. psychological distance, escapism, curiosity) that shape consumer perceptions of crypto brands. Our work extends the cryptocurrency and branding literatures in identifying the main sources of CBBE in the crypto market.
Open access
Digital Marketing and Social Media
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
The purpose of this paper was to propose a model that examined a study adopting the technology acceptance model with additional constructs (i.e., innovativeness) and the mediating role of attitude and perceived risk to use the cryptocurrency platform in Thailand. The data were collected through a questionnaire-based survey (456 usable responses) from consumers in Thailand. A two-step SEM approach (i.e., a measurement model and a structural model) was used to analyze the data. The findings showed a significant positive influence of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, innovativeness, attitude, perceived risk, and cryptocurrency platform adoption. Moreover, attitude mediated the relationship between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, innovativeness, and cryptocurrency platform adoption. Overall, our results showed that the model of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and innovativeness explained 62.9% of the variance in the intention to use the cryptocurrency platform in Thailand. Our study has contributed to the technology acceptance model and highlighted its effectiveness in explaining the adoption of the cryptocurrency platform in Thailand.
Mehdi Dadkhah, Fariborz Rahimnia, Viachaslau Filimonau
Purpose The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate the potential of the blockchain technology in tourism. The blockchain technology (BCT) holds potential to contribute significantly to tourism policy and practice. Academic interest in the BCT is rapidly growing with studies looking at the opportunities and challenges of its application. The shortcoming of research on the BCT in tourism has however been in its conceptual nature. The lack of empirical investigations hinders an understanding of how the BCT can be more broadly adopted in tourism, especially from the viewpoint of minimizing its risks. Design/methodology/approach The initial screening of the opportunities, challenges and risks is undertaken via a systematic literature review. The Delphi study is subsequently applied to empirically confirm what opportunities, challenges and risks can be attributed to the BCT use in tourism. Twelve industry and academic experts have contributed to the Delphi study. Findings The risks identified have been categorized as societal, technical, financial and legal. Propositions have been made on how these risks can, at least partially, be overcome. Originality/value To the best of the authorsâ knowledge, it is the first known attempt to study the BCT from the perspective of academic and industry experts. This research is also one of the first to evaluate the risks of the BCT use in tourism. Most risks are identified as not critical and can be addressed as the BCT develops.
Purpose Blockchain technology is predicted to revolutionize the tourism and hospitality industry through peer-to-peer hotel bookings with little or no involvement of intermediaries. Outstanding features of this technology are its distributed form of storing data, its collaborative way of identifying the âtrue stateâ of a system and the immutability of data. These features may lead to a perceived loss of controllability among travelers. Based on the Agentic Theory of Human Behavior, the purpose of this study is to propose that this assumed loss of control matters more to travelers with an individualistic rather than a collectivistic predisposition. Design/methodology/approach In two studies ( n = 475 and n = 196) using verbal scenarios, this study manipulates the perceived controllability of a blockchain-enabled hotel booking app by varying the number of additional services linked to the app. This study tests for the interaction of controllability with individual-level measures of individualistic versus collectivistic (I-C) predisposition. Findings Collectivistic travelers are more willing than individualistic travelers to use blockchain technology for their hotel bookings. This effect can be mitigated by offering additional services that give individualistic travelers an enhanced sense of âbeing in controlâ. Practical implications Blockchain-enabled applications facilitating direct hotel bookings without any additional intermediary services are more readily accepted by travelers with a collectivistic mindset. Blockchain applications addressing individualistic travelers require added services that establish a sense of controllability. Originality/value To the best of the authorsâ knowledge, this paper is the first to investigate the interaction of I-C predisposition with perceived controllability in tourism and hospitality. Furthermore, it is the first in the technology-acceptance literature to test this interaction using individual-level measures of I-C predisposition and an experimental manipulation of perceived controllability.
Nowadays, with the emergence of Web 3.0 and the metaverse, we collectively witnessed the explosive development of the decentralised autonomous organisation and the blockchain business model. Particularly, the advancement of technologies has further given birth to a novel form of social platform as blockchain-enabled social media (i.e., SocialFi), which is growing both in size and number of users. Accordingly, the rapid development of these blockchain-enabled social media firms illustrates the requirement to better understand the reasons behind this increase and the innovative practices and strategies of firms in this emerging field. Using the case of Pixie â the worldâs first fully functional decentralised photo and video sharing social network based on blockchain technology, this insight paper identifies a conceptual model of blockchain-enabled social media that is useful for illustrating the successful business strategy and operations of firms. Particularly, the identified model employs four pillars of innovation as fundamental technologies, governance and operations, incentive mechanism design, and organisational structure and performance. Based on this crypto economy social media model, the study further presents the main challenges, discusses the implications based on agency theory, as well as highlights several directions for future research associated with blockchain-enabled social media.
Cryptocurrencies are rising in importance as an investment option and alternative currency. Thus, investors are keen on finding timely market movement insights. One such source is Twitter due to its live feed of information on cryptocurrencies and emotional information from investors expressing their sentiments. This article examines the extent to which Twitter sentiments can be used to predict price and transaction volume changes for the nine largest cryptocurrencies for the period of June 2021 to September 2021. This study was conducted using a lexicon-based approach through the VADER algorithm for sentiment analysis, while applying the Granger causality method to analyze the two-way predictive capabilities of each cryptocurrency&s;s sentiments toward their respective price and transaction volume changes. Past studies have shown that sentiment analysis may work for several cryptocurrencies, while this study only found predictive capabilities in transaction volume changes and not in price movement.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have registered tremendous growth in the past year, and their importance is expected to increase with the expected development of Web3. From a brand perspective, NFTs can be seen as representations of the brand components, such as the product, the logo, or the image. I argue that NFTs have immense potential to become standalone brand assets. I illustrate how this can be achieved by relating the brand's NFT strategies to the marketing funnel stages. Brands can turn into an NFT their physical products such as shoes, shirts, or art to attract brand awareness, generate cross-selling opportunities, and spark stronger perceived ownership of certain brand elements. Importantly, NFTs can allow brands to form a highly engaging brand community that can support the brand, blend online and offline product ownership, and potentially create a bond between the brand and consumers. These exciting possibilities generate a rich research agenda I present in this paper.
Open access
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Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
Without the need for third-party authorization, cryptocurrency allows for anonymous, secure, rapid, and low-cost financial transactions. Cryptocurrencies are becoming more widely acknowledged around the world, but their uses remain limited. The present study investigated the factors that propel behavioral intention of individuals to use cryptocurrency in Jordan using the extended Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) model. Survey questionnaires were sent to 1000 active Facebook users to gather data, and the entire 600 valid responses were evaluated utilizing Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Subjected norm, perceived risk, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use and trust, all impacted intention to use cryptocurrency positively, while attitude towards cryptocurrency affected intention to use cryptocurrency. Additionally, attitude towards cryptocurrency was influenced by perceived risk, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and perceived ease of use; while facilitating condition did not show influence. Also, attitude towards cryptocurrency had a mediating influence on the association between subjected norm, perceived risk, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and intention to use cryptocurrency.
This paper aims to identify the factors affecting the investment decision of retail investors to add crypto assets to their portfolios. The personality theory and the innovation diffusion theory are used in this study to understand the characteristics that influence investors' buying intentions. The study results show that the retail investors' purchase intentions are influenced by familiarity with the asset, trust, risk and return profile of the asset class, and the perceived security of the investor. The study also examines the role of innovativeness as a moderating variable in the relationship between purchase intentions and the primary variables. The study confirms that innovativeness has a significant mediating role in the relationship between purchase intentions and trust and also in the relationship between purchase intentions and perceived security. The results indicate that innovativeness has no significant moderating impact on the relationship between purchase intentions and familiarity and also on the relationship between purchase intentions and risk and return consciousness.
The âmarriageâ of tourism and technology has given birth to a new realm, this of Smart Tourism. During the last decade, a significant number of researches in the aforesaid sector have been published, revealing the growing interest in the field. With our ultimate goal being to give prominence to existing knowledge in the smart tourism sector and lay the foundations for future research in the field, we attempt to conceptualize it, by extending our previous research [1] were 12 main approaches-concepts were identified. In this research paper, we have managed to expand the borders of the smart tourism realm with three more concepts, namely Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Cyber tourism giving insight to the state of art and emphasizing what the focus of further research should be.
Chrystina Valentine Kwesnady, Bonifasius Randy Prasetyo, Kevin Kevin, Yen Sun
This research has the aim of knowing the role of Access to Technology (AT, Firm Innovative (FI), and Herd Behavior (HB) towards individual Intention to Invest in Cryptocurrency (IC)., which are further moderated by Overconfidence (OC) and Past Behavior (PB) to find out their relationship to the wealth creation obtained. The data was collected from individual cryptocurrency investors in Indonesia using non-probability sampling questionnaire to verify respondents have an experience in cryptocurrency investments and valid to be references in measuring the impact of intention to invest in cryptocurrency on the wealth creation. Statistical testing through the SEM-PLS method shows that AT, FI, and HB have a positive and significant influence on IC. Moderation of OC on IC shows a significant positive relationship to WC because it helps individuals think more rationally by considering other people's opinions and own analysis. Moderation of PB on IC also shows a significant positive relationship to WC because it helps individuals set strategies in achieving the desired return from previous experiences.
Abstract Prior research typically positions blockchain technology as enabling a trustless exchange environment without specifically investigating how blockchain technology provides trust and what makes the data in a blockchain âtamperproofâ and âimmutable.â This article serves to address these research gaps by conducting semi-structured interviews with 18 informants who have had at least three years of project experience with blockchain-enabled exchanges. Our findings uncover three unique aspects of blockchain that enable trust in exchange vs. a traditional exchange: (1) trust in exchange actors: mathematics and cryptography vs. human guardians within institutions, (2) trust in exchange actions: information transparency enabling tamperproof and immutable data vs. information asymmetry, and (3) trust in exchange assets: digital vs. manual escrows for verifying ownership of valuable goods. This research is vital for marketing scholars and practitioners who seek to understand the rise of threats to trust regarding online advertising, customer trust, privacy, and digital rights.
In this article we provide a primer for blockchain technology (BT) and explain ways that it has been applied (or can be applied) to the field of advertising research and practice. We situate this primer inside a critical look at the evolution of digital advertising that has been driven largely by immediate technological need for the maximization of profit rather than considerations for societal well-being. We discuss arenas in which the current state of digital advertising is not well positioned to maximize societal well-being and has built a consumer distrust of digital advertising, specifically with regard to the areas of privacy invasion, value to consumers, technology companiesâ power, inaccuracies of personalizations, and misinformation spread. Throughout this article we discuss how blockchain technologies can be used as a research environment for testing new paths for digital advertising that could tackle these issues and be more beneficial to society. We also provide an overview of avenues for future research on BT application in the digital advertising ecosystem.
Carlos Heras Bernardino, Carlos J. Costa, Manuela AparĂcio
Blockchain is a relatively new technology supported by a decentralized database that received special attention at the research level in the last years due to its fundamental characteristics. Numerous researchers have applied blockchain studies in many fields, but the scope is very large and there is no delimitation of new and emergent trends. The method used to better understand the evolution and impact of blockchain technology was a bibliometric analysis. A search was conducted at digital Elsevierâs database with a single keyword blockchain, and 23383 articles were collected. The study uses cluster analysis method, allowing to construct and visualize bibliometric networks and to build co-occurrences networks. The results indicate that there are positive correlations between countries, that China and the United States are part of the most influential cluster. Indicates also emerging developments in the areas of governance, industry, decision-making processes, management, internet of things, information security, and a new hot topic, energy.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has led to the acceleration of the digitization process and to a shifting to Industry 4.0. Blockchain (BC) is one of the technologies that has been introduced worldwide in recent years. It has been beneficial for the tourism industry, in addition to many other sectors. This article investigates the advantages and disadvantages of BC adoption in the tourism industry, as well as the possible solutions to overcome the challenges. This paper conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) that consists of the operations for detecting, selecting, categorizing, and analyzing relevant articles on a specified subject. It is evident from the results that the majority of the academic works illustrate the benefits of BC implementation and explain its potential by providing diverse models of BC-based systems. However, since BC is a young technology, numerous challenges have appeared on the path to its full adoption in the tourism industry. Possible solutions are the achievement of a collaborative approach among the stakeholders, the deepening of academic research in the field, testing more models of BC-based systems, and the establishment of relevant policies. Consequently, the implications for the theory, practice, policy, and research of this work are significant.
A shift of paradigm is running over online social platforms: the over-centralization of these platforms is leaving room for decentralized solutions based on blockchain technologies, such as blockchain-based online social networks-BOSNs. Among the many unknown aspects of these techno-social systems, the objective of this study is to propose an analytical framework to assess the impact of the cryptocurrencies linked to a BOSN platform on the evolution of its social network and on the behavior of their users, in terms of production of content and/or its promotion through a voting and rewarding system. The framework has been applied to Steemit, one of the most widespread BOSNs, from which we collected three-year-long high-resolution data on its evolution along with the price of its main cryptocurrencies. On users' activities extracted from these longitudinal data, we applied a time-series correlation analysis and a correlation analysis between the action allocation strategies and the obtained rewards, in the case of most central accounts. The analysis has highlighted pieces of evidence of the influence of the cryptocurrency price on users' actions, particularly on actions that shape the structure of the social networks. Second, we also found highly rewarded users prefer actions related to the promotion of content rather than the creation of high-quality content, exploiting the reward distribution mechanisms implemented by the platform. These findings highlight that the shift of paradigm towards blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies might strengthen the influence of financial and economic factors rather than relational/social aspects on the evolution of these new complex techno-social systems.
This paper examines the respondent's purchase intentions appropriate to the advertising variables. It therefore sum ups the consequences and impacts related to respondent's choice of advertising variables and purchase intentions of cryptocurrency. The unexplored market potential of cryptocurrency might be due to ineffective use of advertising to facilitate purchase intention. Interestingly, scanty empirical investigation could be found on the topic of advertising and purchasing intentions of cryptocurrency among developing economies of the world. Accordingly, the need for the research presented here is evident. The main purpose of the study is investigating the effects of advertising on purchase intention of cryptocurrency among young adult in Awka, Nigeria. This necessitated conducting a research for the evaluation of current advertising practices to check their effect on consumer purchase intentions. Data were collected from the sample of 138 individuals selected randomly. Presented questionnaire was used to collect data. Data analysis and interpretations was done through regression model and descriptive statistics. To check the impact of advertising, the advertising related variables were used which includes awareness, interest, desire, action of advertising on the dependent variable of consumerâs purchase intentions of crypto currency. The results declared most advertising related variables have significant impact on purchase intentions.
The digital transformation of core marketing activities substantially impacts relations between consumers and companies. Novel technologies are usually complex, making their underlying functionality as well as the desirable and undesirable implications hard to grasp for ordinary consumers. Cryptocurrencies are a prominent yet controversial and poorly understood example of an innovation that may transform companiesâ future marketing activities. In this study, we investigate how easily consumersâ attitudes toward cryptocurrencies can be shaped by splitting a convenience sample of 100 consumers into two equal groups and exposing them to true, but biased, information about cryptocurrencies (including market forecasts), respectively, highlighting either the advantages or disadvantages of the technology. We subsequently found a significant difference in the trust, security and risk perceptions between the two groups; specifically, more positive attitudes pertaining to trust, security, risk and financial gains prevailed in the group exposed to positively-skewed information, while perceptions regarding trust, risk and the sustainability of cryptocurrencies were weaker among the group exposed to negatively-skewed information. These findings reveal some important insights into how easily consumer attitudes toward new technologies can be shaped through the presentation of lopsided information and call for further in-depth research in this important yet under-researched field.
Open access
Digital Marketing and Social Media
Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
This study aims to identify the application of Theory of Planned Behavior to predict people's intentions to invest in cryptocurrencies. Theory of Planned Behavior remains the most prominent theory in behavioral research to predict oneâs intention or behavior. This research selected and reviewed articles related to the application of Theory of Planned Behavior. Data was collected from journals, papers, books, and websites related to the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and cryptocurrency. This study revealed that Theory of Planned Behavior is valid and reliable to measure cryptocurrency investment intention. Self-efficacy was used to as a proxy for perceived of behavioral control. This study can be used to develop responsive strategies.